


Missing You

by therealtortilla



Category: Backstreet Boys
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1934946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therealtortilla/pseuds/therealtortilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AJ can't stop reflecting on his past long enough to sleep and does something stupid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Missing You

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place shortly after Kevin left the Backstreet Boys in 2006. I was inspired by John Waite's "Missing You," thus the title, however, I wrote this late at night so it turned out a bit angsty even for that song. Oh well.

It was nights like these where AJ hated sobriety. He would do anything, needed to do something, to get him off of his mind.

He lay in room 518 of some hotel in some country that was oceans away from where he truly wanted to be. And he couldn't sleep.

It was 4:32 AM here right now. He could call. It was only 8:32PM in LA. That was a decent hour. But he was probably busy, with his family. With his new baby boy.

He picked up his cell phone from the side table and scrolled through his contacts, stopping at his name. He wondered if he still had the same number. No, he knew he did – he'd asked Nick last week, if the number was still the same, made Nick call him, just to be sure. It had been. What hurt, was that he had been so happy to hear from Nick. AJ feared it wouldn't be the same response for him. Even though he knew that was stupid.

That's why he didn't call.

_“Why don't you just call him yourself?” Nick had asked._

_AJ didn't respond._

_“You miss him, don't you?”_

_“No."_

Thoughts of him bombarded every section of AJ's brain, keeping him awake. Turning over every detail, every stupid word said, the way they'd held each other when he said he was leaving. AJ wanted to scream into his pillow. He wanted to talk to Brian. Maybe Brian would make him feel better. Brian's voice wasn't the one he wanted to hear the most, but it was as close to that Southern drawl as he could get right now.

Unless he called him.

It was only 8:33PM in LA.

His thumb strayed across the “call” button, but he didn't press it. He didn't want him to find out that he had trouble sleeping because of him.

He set the phone back down on the side table and rolled over in bed, squeezing his eyes shut. Even trying to not think of him was still thinking about him. The harder he tried not to, the more the man came to mind. Flashes of green eyes, dark hair. That proud smile he saved just for AJ, because AJ was sober now. 

AJ moaned out loud when he remembered the tightness of his embrace. The way he buried his face into his neck when they hugged. The day he announced he was leaving the group.

The words he'd spoken, into AJ's shoulder, as AJ tried so hard to keep it together.

“It's okay,” he'd said, softly, like a father comforting his child. And AJ broke, because he didn't want to be comforted. He wanted it to all be a lie. He wanted it to be a sick joke. But it hadn't been.

_“Don't blame yourself.”_

And here he was now, so pathetic, knowing it was all his fault. It was not even a month into the first tour without him, and he couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand himself, or anyone around him. He needed him, and he wasn't here, and AJ didn't know what the hell to do. He didn't know how to solve his own problems.

He turned over again, scraping his fingers over his face, wishing he could just get his brain to shut up. He sat up, considered putting on the television. He didn't. Instead, he felt around for his lighter and pack of cigarettes and went out to the balcony for a smoke.

Strange. He didn't remember picking up his phone, too.

He stared at it, in his hand, after he lit a cigarette and pocketed the rest. Again, he scrolled through the contacts and stopped at his name. He squeezed his eyes shut, resisting the urge to call and apologize and try to make things normal again. Because he didn't miss him. He didn't fucking miss him.

And he shouldn't have to apologize, not for what he'd done. He couldn't help what he'd done, how he'd felt.

 _He_ should be the one to apologize, for strapping AJ into this never-ending roller coaster of guilt and self-hate.

An irrational urge to throw his phone over the balcony down onto the city street five levels below came over him. He didn't, though – with his luck, the phone would survive the fall, and some paparazzi or crazy fan would pick it up and he'd be fucked.

There was a time he'd said he'd always be there for AJ, despite everything. He'd told him, the last time AJ had spoken to him a few months ago, that he could call anytime he needed him. Even though AJ decided then and there that he never would.

AJ took one long drag of the cigarette and blew out the smoke, watching it drift before his eyes.

That face appeared in his mind again, behind a conjured image of smoke. He had always appreciated a really good cigar, offering up the occasional one to AJ when AJ was lucky enough to be alone with him. He swore he could smell the cigar smoke even now. There became a point in his life where AJ stopped discerning between the scent of cigars and the cologne he wore. It was all the same thing. It was all him, and it was all everything AJ could never have.

AJ almost had.

AJ would never have.

A cool breeze tickled AJ's skin. He wished he was there to keep him warm. To kiss away all this frustration and pain, like he'd imagined so many times. Like he'd yearned for since day one. He finished his cigarette and flicked it over the rail before going back inside.

 _Fuck it._ He just wanted to hear his voice. He could make up some rat-ass excuse for calling.

He glared hard at his phone, and jammed his thumb on the “call” button.

“Fuck it,” he said out loud. Then, he realized the depth of what he had just done, and started freaking out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he whispered under his breath, holding the phone up to his ear. Maybe he wouldn't pick up.

It rang three times, each ring making AJ's heart race faster. He couldn't take this, he'd wait one more and hang up --

“Hello?”

A pause. AJ couldn't speak. He was pretty sure his heart stopped, so why was it beating so loudly in his chest? He felt any semblance of understandable English jam in his throat. This had been a huge mistake.

“Alex?”

“Shit,” AJ muttered, ending the call and throwing his phone onto the bed as fast as if it had burned him. He shook, ran a hand through his short hair. “Fuck!” he hissed. He didn't realize how unready he was to hear the older man's voice. It was so smooth, so perfect, exactly the same as he remembered it and imagined it in his head. And there was no hint of sadness in it, or longing, like he'd hoped.

He knew he was screwed now. Knew he only had to wait about ten seconds before his phone would start vibrating. Knew he should answer, play it off like the call had been a mistake.

He still jumped at the noise, even though he had expected it. The phone lit up a small part of the dark room and buzzed on top of the tangle of bedsheets. AJ began to sweat. He stood there, on the opposite side of the bed, and stared at it. It buzzed nine, ten times. Then stopped.

A pleasant jingle of notes some seconds later meant AJ had a new voicemail.

 

AJ drank a glass of water. He paced around the room twenty-seven times. He checked the mini-bar, but all that was in it was more water and some Coke. He didn't want to be charged eight dollars for a Coke. He went into the bathroom, stared at himself in the mirror. Stared at his receding hairline. Hated himself. Went back into the room, which was still completely dark, got into bed, found his phone, and pressed it up to his ear, calling his voicemail.

 _One new message_.

“ _Hey, AJ._ ” AJ swallowed hard, feeling the tears well up in his eyes but doing all he could to fight them back as Kevin's recorded voice continued. “ _You just called me so I'm callin' back. Maybe it was by accident. I know y'all are in Europe somewhere right now, so it's gotta be pretty early in the morning for you to be on your phone. Hope you're sleeping alright._ ” A sigh. “ _I feel like I haven't talked to y'all in so long. Call me back when you get a chance. I'd love to catch up.... You still have to meet Mason. Just started walkin'. He's a little firecracker, just like his mom._ ” A chuckle, then a pause. “ _I miss you, you know_.” AJ blinked and several tears rolled down his cheeks. “ _I hope everything's okay._ _Talk to you soon, buddy._ ”

AJ didn't realize he'd sobbed out loud until he noticed how suddenly quiet it was in the room after the sound. And then he sobbed again, letting it all out, curling up into a ball and dropping his phone into his lap.

The flashbacks that he'd been trying unsuccessfully to hold back all night, that he'd been trying to repress ever since it happened, now attacked his mind all at once. Kevin's lips on his. How they'd kissed for hours. How it had felt so good and right. How they'd both cried. How Kevin said he would leave his wife for AJ. How, in the end, Kevin instead left the band. Left AJ.

How they'd never talked about it.

How he felt so alone now and just wanted to hear his voice again.

And here the asshole was, calling AJ “buddy,” like things between them weren't totally fucked, like nothing between them had even happened. Although, AJ supposed now, nothing really had. Just the kissing, and the promises. And the hope that kept resurfacing with just one look mistaken for meaningful, only to be squashed over and over again. He clenched his fists in the bedsheets and cried louder now, not caring if he woke up folks in the neighboring rooms.

He shouldn't have called.

 _No_. He should've waited, should've talked when Kevin answered the phone.

Kevin wasn't supposed to be happy and living life fine without him. Not when AJ could barely get out of bed each morning knowing it was all his fault. All his damn fault Kevin had walked out.

_'I miss you, you know.'_

AJ longed for there to be something deeper in those words. But he knew there wasn't. Never would be.

“I miss you, too,” he whimpered to the empty room.

When he got no response, he cried harder.


End file.
